


sometimes sweet, sometimes sour

by nebulousviolet



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula Redemption, Character Study, F/F, Implied homophobia, One -shot, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, i havent read the comics so...not comic compliant lol, non-linear, the zukka is very background lol this is azula centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26800120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nebulousviolet/pseuds/nebulousviolet
Summary: "You hate Mai. She’s probably the only person in the world whom you hate that doesn’t know it, who has lived to tell the tale."_After the war, Azula has a lot to unpack.
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 128





	sometimes sweet, sometimes sour

**Author's Note:**

> let's not read too much into the fact that i have a certain...fixation on complicated sibling relationships (a lot of this is heavily influenced by alec and isabelle from the mortal instruments, who i think are the best case scenario of the "neglected older brother/prodigal younger sister" dynamic that zuko and azula have) and instead celebrate the fact that after skulking around the fandom for several months, i'm finally singing for my supper and publishing a fic for it lmao  
> partially dedicated to jumaynah, whose 2016 atla stan account made me suck it up and watch the show <33

You hate Mai. She’s probably the only person in the world whom you hate that doesn’t know it, who has lived to tell the tale.

You tell Zuko this, the first time he visits you; there’s circles under his eyes that spell out weakness clearer than any of the stone tablets the two of you used to practice handwriting on, your script in perfect cursive and his a narrow slant. He thinks that it’s a mercy for him not to be wearing the royal headpiece today, the most ostentatious symbol of his victory (if it can be called that, you think, your thoughts a roaring snarl) but he’s wrong. He’s so _stupid_.

He says, “I didn’t ask her to do that for me.”  
He thinks you’re talking about Boiling Rock, about a series of events that you can’t stop yourself from overanalysing to see where you went wrong: Mai with her daggers, Ty Lee dancing across cable lines, the agonising helplessness of dropping to the floor with one well-timed jab and the even more painful feeling of betrayal.

You want to rip his throat out. You wish the Avatar - whose name Zuko trips over, hesitant, because Zuko’s friends might prescribe to the useless idea of loyalty without fear but Zuko is so scared _all the damned time_ \- took away your bending, not Father’s, and that you’d just been left to rot.

“Don’t be dense, Zuzu,” you hiss. His flinch, imperceptible as it is, brings you no satisfaction. A part of you wonders when it stopped. Another, smaller part, wonders if it ever did. “I thought you and your little gang were all about _love_ and _feelings_. Figure it out on your own.”

He seizes the opportunity to change the subject, to fill you in on reconstruction efforts and peace banquets and meaningless prattle about _Toph_ and _Sokka_ , as if you know who either of those people are. As if he expects you to understand something as volatile as camaraderie, like you haven’t spent your entire life in search of power, of approval. Things he has earned without really trying. Things that you’re not too sure who you are without.

“Go,” you snap at him, cutting him off. “Get out. I don’t want to look at you anymore.”  
  
Princesses don’t cry. That’s why you scream into your pillow, instead.

* * *

The third time he visits, you notice a pattern, a conspicuous absence. You tire of his blustering and demand, “Where’s Ty Lee?”  
  
And he hesitates. He’s never been as good a liar as you are; he received too much devotion from your mother as a child to pick up the habit by the time he needed it.

He was never going to be Fire Lord. At least, he wasn’t supposed to. That had been why you were the one taught to manipulate, to connive, to think and communicate exclusively in doublespeak. To obfuscate your true meaning even as you thought it, to look for threats when there weren’t any. _You have a gift for politics, Azula._ You’re only just beginning to realise that that’s not really a compliment, coming from Ozai.

You’re getting away from the point; Zuko is terrible at concealing the truth. You narrow your eyes, knowing that it’s never going to be as terrifying as it once was, knowing that when he looks at you he only sees the way you were during your - your _episode_ , as all the healers keep calling it, and say, “She doesn’t want you to tell me.”

Zuko winces.

“It’s not like I can _leave_ ,” you muse to yourself, twisting the knife in further. (You’re not here because Zuko feels particularly bad for you. You’re here because he feels bad about himself, because of his own guilt, because he thinks that by somehow fixing you he’s going to fix all of the Fire Nation. You haven’t figured out the most memorable way to tell him all of this yet). “You made sure of that.”  
  
You’re saying this to hurt him. You’re definitely not saying it because the thought of Ty Lee being scared of you - of her convincing Zuko to lie for her - makes you feel sick to your stomach. (You always knew she feared you. You used that to your advantage. It’s your own fault for not anticipating the consequences.)

“That’s not fair,” Zuko says quietly. “Once you’re eighteen, you can leave anytime you want.”  
“ _You’re_ not even eighteen yet,” you scowl.  
“I know,” Zuko says, looking exhausted, and it sticks in your ribs like a knife, like an arc of electricity.

(You’re not going to feel bad for him. You’re _not._ )

You never do find out where Ty Lee is.

* * *

Sometimes the two of you play Pai Sho. He’s terrible at it, even after all that time with Uncle; Zuko has never had much patience for the long game, which is why you were surprised to find that he’d stuck at his quest of finding the Avatar all those years down the line.

The first time he beats you, the look on his face is apprehension instead of pride. He thinks that, still, you are going to hurt him. It’s only when your gaze slides from his face back down to the tiles to ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes next time that the two of you realise that you won’t.

You tilt your head to examine his face. _Zuko._ These days, you can scarcely remember what he looked like without the scar. Without the mark of dishonour. “You’ve been taking lessons,” you say.

“Not really.” Zuko shifts in his seat. He stopped bothering to hide the headpiece a handful of visits ago - that’s how you measure time, now: sunrise, sunset, and your brother’s visits. “I broke up with Mai.”  
  
You can’t help it. You scorch the Pai Sho table with a searing wall of blue flame. Zuko’s expression is resigned.

* * *

You are five. Mai is six. Zuko, not quite the prodigal son, is seven.

Ty Lee, the baby of your quartet, the baby of her identical sisters, trails behind you. She looks to Mai for instruction when the three of you play tag in the gardens. She oohs and aahs when Mai pulls out the tiny dagger one of her uncles gave to her upon return from a reconnaissance trip to Omashu, a privilege afforded to Mai by virtue of her being an only child. Sourness curls in your stomach, unbidden.

(And you like Ty Lee. She claps obediently when you show her your new firebending trick of the week. She lets you pull out the long braid her mother slaves over, and tug at her hair this way and that. Of course: you’re the princess. This is to be expected. But Ty Lee always seems so happy to do whatever you ask that you can’t help but feel jealous whenever she directs that same joy at Mai.)

You think: the only way to get Mai to leave Ty Lee alone is to give her someone else willing to fawn over her. You think: why not Zuko?

Like all of your plans, it works too well, and yet comes apart when you need to rely on it most.

* * *

_“Hi, Azula,” she says, her voice soft. “Your aura is looking very pink today.”_ _  
__  
_It is, of course, a dream. You know she’s never going to come see you. You know your name is a dirty word.

* * *

You’re playing card games today; Zuko has a friend of a friend with an interest in old Fire Nation traditions, and the result is a pack of fifty-two wafer thin oil-paint representations of each of the four nations. Zuko has the house advantage, but you’re winning anyway. There’s a metaphor for your childhood in that somewhere. 

You play your turn: three of a kind, five of flame and earth and water. A smile tugs itself up from the corner of Zuko’s mouth, and he looks younger. Of course - he’s got the five of air, and that’s his final card. You roll your eyes, huff at defeat, but it’s only for play. You’re not fourteen anymore. Zuko doesn’t need to save the world - to save it from you.

You think maybe you did not ever abhor Zuko as much as you were told you did.

There’s an elephant in the room now that the game is over. The two of you are looking at each other, Zuko awkward, you determined, and you crack first. “I’m eighteen in two months,” you say, because they started letting you use calendars again. They’re very impressed with your progress. Eventually, they say, you’ll be allowed to look at your reflection. 

You’re not sure if you need to. When you look at Zuko - gold eyes, onyx hair, the same imperial bone structure that your father and your father’s father boasted - it’s far too easy to see yourself reflected back. And you remember the last time you had a mirror. Perhaps it’s better this way.

“I know,” Zuko says. He laces long, scarred fingers together; you don’t remember where the scars are from, particularly, but they’re old and faded enough that you can guess. “I don’t want you to leave, Azula.”  
You open your mouth to snap at him, fragile peace broken, but he shakes his head rapidly, continues. “I mean - I want you to stay. In the palace. In Caldera City. I don’t want you to be on your own.”

Four years ago, you would not have been on your own. You would’ve had Ty Lee, and Mai - because even if you hate her, she’s still better than nothing, and it’s not really her fault that Ty Lee seems to like her almost more than she likes you. It’s not like you’ve ever understood the attraction, anyway. But they’re never coming back for you. You know that now.

You don’t particularly blame them. It’s not like you’ve ever asked to visit your father. But it still - it _hurts_ . The look on Ty Lee’s face when you were going to kill Mai, to finally take your anger and envy out on her at last, has haunted you throughout your time here. (And you can’t undo it. You’re not sure that you would, even if you could. But you’re getting closer to an admission that would’ve been unthinkable all that time ago, and you think perhaps you understand why it’s called feeling _heartbroken_.)

“I will consider it,” you say, drawing yourself up to full height, regal in posture and pose. “But I would like to send a letter.”  
  
You want him to say no. You want an excuse to scream at him, to relapse, to justify why you spent your childhood weaponizing your every talent against your brother.

(You don’t. You know you don’t.)

Zuko inclines his head. “I’ll do what I can,” he promises, so earnest, so devoid of ulterior motives. You dream about killing him sometimes. You’re always shaking when you wake up.

(It’s never going to be the way it could’ve been. It’s better than it was.)

* * *

When you’re thirteen, you kiss her.

Ty Lee turns the same colour she claims your aura is when you’re in a particularly good mood: rosy, shell-pink. She doesn’t push you away, but she doesn’t kiss you back, either. 

“Azula,” she whispers, eyes very wide and very brown in the dimness of the dorm room. “We can’t.”  
  
You think it’s because it’s illegal. It occurs to you, later, that it’s maybe because Ty Lee loves someone else.

* * *

She doesn’t write back, but she also doesn’t return the letter, so you suppose you couldn’t have hoped for any better.

* * *

When Zuko gets engaged a second time - though you ponder if the first one with Mai really counts, having lasted a whole six weeks and all - it is spring, and you are twenty-one. You’ve heard that the Kyoshi Warriors are in town for the occasion, but you haven’t sought _her_ out. You would like to see her eventually, to apologise, to show her how far you’ve come, but not now.

Perhaps one day, she will come to you. The hope is foolish, fleeting, but not as impossible as it was at fifteen, trapped in the four white walls of your room at the facility, so desperate to feel only rage.

Sokka is wary of you, you know that much. He plays you in Pai Sho anyway, cocks his head when you make what you both know is an overtly cunning move, laughs when, against all the odds, the game ends in a tie. He looks good in Fire Nation reds, you think. Less like his sister, who you still feel uncomfortable around, knowing that she has seen you at your most vulnerable, and more like...well, you’re not sure what he looks like, exactly, when most of your memories involve war. But it suits him anyway.  
  
He seems happy. He makes Zuko happy - and a far better challenge at Pai Sho - so there’s very little for you to complain about, overall.

“It’s nice that he has you,” he tells you one day, at the end of a long, arduous meeting on military strategy (because it was always you who were the warmaker, not Zuko, and so the generals perk up whenever you tag along, pleased to have someone willing to speak their language). The betrothal necklace sits at his throat, royal blue leather and carved whalebone. “It reminds him that he’s not the only one of you left. Not,” Sokka adds hurriedly, “that you’re ever going to have to assume the throne. There are, uh, contingencies in place. No offence.”

You knew you weren't truly going to rule the moment Father named you Fire Lord, and himself the Phoenix King. Perhaps you’ve always known. It doesn't sting like it could've done.

“It’s nice,” you agree. You smile.


End file.
